Speaking at an emergency meeting of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation Tuesday, Safadi said: “the number of extremists who stormed Al-Aqsa today stands at a record number that has not been recorded since the beginning of the Israeli occupation in 1967.”

He warned that the visit of Jews to the holiest site in Judaism could cause violence and riots. "The crisis is over but further and more dangerous crises will break out as a result of Israel’s continued provocation, if Israel will not uproot the source of the tension, if the occupation will not end and if East Jerusalem will not become the capital of an independent Palestine.”

The fast, which takes place annually on the ninth day of the Hebrew month of Av, commemorates the destruction of the two Holy Temples by the Babylonian and Roman empires in 586 BCE and 70 CE, respectively. Religious Jews refrain from eating and drinking for a 25 hour period of mourning. They also refrain from wearing leather shoes and bathing and do not sit on anything higher than a 1-foot high stool until midday. They do not greet one another on the eve of the fast and there is no Torah study because it gladdens the heart.